


Title, Author.

by downjune



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, First Time, Friends to Lovers, M/M, POV Alternating, The WBS Kids Discover Fandom, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2019-03-09 02:27:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13471731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downjune/pseuds/downjune
Summary: “I shit you not,” Willy said. “There’s x-rated porn of you and Knuckles on the internet.”Rusty shot Tom a confused look, which Tom returned. “I don’t understand. We’ve never done a porno. We’d remember that, right, Knuckles?” Tom nodded. He would definitely remember that.





	Title, Author.

**Author's Note:**

> So, somewhere, somebody (discord? tumblr? twitter? we just don't remember) had a plot bunny that the WBS kids discovered RPF fanfic, and were totally freaked, but one of them secretly thought it was hot. And that became this. Don't worry, nobody writes any.
> 
> If you've forgotten or didn't know how adorable Rusty and Knuckles are, [here](http://itstartledme.tumblr.com/post/166829921493/intermissionpenguins-round-one-sights-sounds) [are some](http://itstartledme.tumblr.com/post/156934327385/intermissionpenguins-020217-rust-and) [reminders.](http://itstartledme.tumblr.com/post/141404799148/puckducky-wsh-pit-32016) Also, Tomas Kuhnhackl [totally said this.](http://itstartledme.tumblr.com/post/159343156561/ehghtyseven-were-you-now-tom)

“Dude, you are not gonna believe this.” Willy laughed from where he sat at Rusty’s dining room table. “You’ve got porn.”

“What?” Rusty called from the kitchen. “You have porn, too, dude. I’ve seen it.”

“No, I mean porn _about_ you. Oh shit, you and Knuckles, like, together.”

Tom had been half-ignoring the conversation—usually the way to go when the guys all got together—but at this, the controller jerked in his hands, and he drove Luigi right off the track and off a cliff. Next to him on the couch, Shearsy crowed in victory.

Rusty stuck his head out of the kitchen. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I shit you not,” Willy said. “There’s x-rated porn of you and Knuckles on the internet.”

Rusty shot Tom a confused look, which Tom returned. “I don’t understand. We’ve never done a porno. We’d remember that, right, Knuckles?” Tom nodded. He would definitely remember that.

“No, no. Like, a story. Fiction. Just come look,” Willy said, gesturing for them to look at his MacBook.

Against his better judgment, Tom abandoned his controller and followed Shearsy across the room. Rusty already stood right behind Willy’s chair, drying his hands on a dishtowel. “How the hell did you even find this?” he asked, bending forward and squinting at the screen.

“Yeah,” Shearsy said. He leaned in from the side and pushed his glasses up his nose. “It can’t be that easy to stumble onto porn stories about hockey players on the internet. You’d have to dig for that. I’m guessing,” he added when all eyes swung his way.

“I was googling myself,” Willy answered defensively. “You guys do it, too, don’t lie.”

“Well, is there porn about you, then?” Rusty asked.

“Maybe.” Willy gave Rusty a weird grin. “But in this one, I’m just a featured character, not the main event.”

Rusty, whose eyes had been tracking back and forth across the screen, reared back. “Oh my god, they’re talking about my dick,” he said, scandalized. “My dick is in this story on the internet. What the fuck—shit, and there’s yours, Knuckles.” 

Tom shifted closer to look over Rusty’s shoulder, and the number of “cocks” in one paragraph jumped right out at him. In the story, he had his cock out and was stroking it. With Rusty. This was on the internet. For anyone to look at. Heat rushed to his face—also, unfortunately, to his dick—when Rusty shot him a glance. He could think of absolutely nothing to say. 

Rusty came to his rescue. “Close it, man. Come on, turn it off. We don’t wanna see that shit, do we, Knuckles.” Tom still couldn’t speak. In the story, Rusty had been on the bed, and Tom was kneeling over him.

Conor gave a twitchy shudder and straightened from the table. “Man, people are so weird. I feel so weird right now.”

Rusty tried to swat the laptop closed, but Willy snatched it out of the way. “Hey, watch it!”

“Well, don’t read it. Come on man, don’t read about Knuckles’ dick. You’re embarrassing him.” Rusty’s face was pretty red, too, but Tom didn’t feel the need to point that out.

“I wasn’t reading it! But this is blowing my mind. If there’s porn about you, then—” Willy clicked around for a second. “Whoa, there’s a ton about Sid and G.”

“There is?” Conor leaned back over the table again.

Rusty hesitated, then shot Tom a quick, inscrutable look. “That makes some sense, I guess.”

As opposed to Rusty and him?

Before he could examine why he felt insulted by that, Rusty’s phone rang, signaling the arrival of pizza and wings—which derailed the conversation as effectively as Sully whistling them to attention.

*

That night, Tom fell down the rabbit hole. He hadn’t planned to. He’d planned _not_ to. The rest of the time at Rusty’s—through dinner and more videogames after—he swore he wouldn’t, swore he was just as freaked out as Shearsy and Rusty, and had no interest in reading porn about himself. He swore he was repulsed by the whole idea. But once he’d tossed his keys in the bowl, kicked off his shoes, and settled in for the night, he lasted all of ten minutes before snatching up his phone and hunting down the website where all the smutty stories lived.

He searched his name, pulse pounding in his face, and found only two stories—both about him and Rusty. Together.

Bryan had more stories than he did, but not many. A couple with Shearsy. One with Geno and one with SId. All of which made sense. Rusty got along with everyone, and everyone loved Rusty.

Not that any of it made sense, of course.

Tom didn’t want to know who these strangers on the internet thought he was. The thought of them imagining his teammates’ private lives—their sex lives—made him itchy in his skin. 

It crossed a line he’d drawn for himself right when he got drafted. Thinking about the guys he saw every day…like that. He kept that out of the locker room by force of habit. He was a professional.

But. Rusty had been on his back, with his knees spread, and his hand on his…and that image was enough to drag Tom across the trench he’d dug between himself and Rusty. There’d only ever really been Rusty. So he shifted further down into his blankets, hand drifting from his stomach to the waist of his underwear, and started to read.

*

Rusty came to bed a while after Tom, and climbed in with him underneath the covers. “Well, how is it?” he asked, leaning into Tom’s shoulder to look at his phone. 

“Not very good,” he answered, not looking up from his reading. “This isn’t like me at all. They’ve got you figured out, though.” He grinned when Rusty reached across him to grab for the phone. His body pressed tight to Tom’s side, and his breath puffed against Tom’s jaw. 

“Lemme see.” He cupped his hand around Tom’s so they both cradled the phone. His head tipped against Tom’s, and the scruff of his beard tickled. They read in silence for a few moments until Rusty huffed quietly. “That’s not how I touch you.” He was pressed so close, his voice rumbled through Tom’s ribs, warm and smiling and without any of its media jitters. 

Tom tried to find the passage Rusty meant, but the words were blurred, so he turned just enough that his cheek brushed Rusty’s. “You’d better show me, then.”

“Yeah, I think so.” Releasing Tom’s hand, he spread his fingers wide across Tom’s bare stomach and rubbed slowly back and forth. Tom breathed into his belly, pushing against Bryan’s hand. 

“I like that,” Tom murmured. 

“I know.” After a few more rubs, Bryan’s hand slid down to cup between his legs, and he held Tom there, making a sound of encouragement when Tom rocked his hips up. He was heavy and warm under the blankets, and Rusty’s weight against his side anchored him in a way that felt so familiar and comforting, his throat got a little tight. He turned and nuzzled against Bryan’s cheek until he turned, too, and they kissed. 

The scruff of his beard and the softness of his mouth were so real that when Tom blinked awake, alone in his bed, he could still feel the kiss on his lips. 

The emptiness of his room pressed in on him, and he rolled over, lungs so tight he could hardly catch his breath. Hand already gripping himself, he ground into it and fisted the other in his pillow. He was hard and hot, and the tragedy of it all was, Rusty knew nothing about how he liked to be touched. He had no idea Tom wanted him at all.

Tom jacked off into his fist, a rough, quick grind against the mattress with just a little too much friction. But the remembered heat of Bryan beside him, half on top of him, carried him past that edge so that after a few hard thrusts, he shuddered through his orgasm. It pulsed heavily, low in his gut, slow with the remembered dream. 

He fell back to sleep without cleaning up, too sad to move. Like he’d known he would, he regretted ever setting eyes on that goddamn story.

~*~

Rusty considered himself a thoughtful bro. An observant bro. A bro with empathy. If anyone understood embarrassment and suffered from it second-hand, it was a kid with a stutter.

So, his spidey-senses were tingling by the end of the week. Something had fucked Kuhni up, and the only cause Bryan could figure was finding out a few fangirls on the internet thought they were banging. Or wanted to imagine they were banging. Or whatever. Kuhni’d obviously been spooked that day. Bryan was too.

By some miracle, Willy and Shearsy had decided not to tell the whole room about it, and Bryan certainly wasn’t about to say anything. The separation between hockey and hockey fans could never be absolute, and Bryan didn’t want it to be. He loved meeting fans. But, _“I’m gonna pretend I didn’t see that”_ was a totally viable strategy in terms of fan interaction and navigation. Bryan deployed it regularly. He wanted to this time.

But maybe Knuckles was still seeing it. Maybe he couldn’t unsee it, because…well, because he’d stopped touching Bryan. Cold turkey. No touching at all.

No grabbing Bryan’s practice sweater and yanking it over his head. No careful smushing against the boards. No play fights. No leaning into him on the bench. No grabbing his practice sweater and just holding onto it. Pulling him close and looking him in the eye and…and…

Bryan bent over, stick pressed across his knees. He needed to breathe into a paper bag. God help him if anybody asked him anything right now—it would not come out of his throat. 

Kuhni had him flustered and bothered _remembering_ how he used to be, and they had a game in twenty minutes. Now was not the time to speculate that Kuhni was in the middle of a gay freak-out. Now was not the time for one of his own. 

A thwack to his ass brought him upright, and he swatted at Willy’s knees as he passed. Willy glanced over his shoulder and grinned at him. With that stupid carrot-colored hair, he looked like some kind of evil fairy, and it was the same grin he’d aimed right before showing Bryan that shitty story. Which Bryan had not read and had no desire to read. 

Knuckles was right behind him, and he gave Bryan a wary look and plenty of room as they headed toward the ramp before the start of the game. A burst of anger cleared out the thickness in Bryan’s chest and throat. Did Kuhni really think because some rando had written a few pages about them fucking he could never touch Bryan again? That the gay would spontaneously generate if they rubbed up against each other? Tom was German—Europeans were supposed to be way more openminded about this shit. They weren’t supposed to be threatened by the _idea_ of maybe, possibly having some chemistry with another dude. Just because someone thought it up on the internet didn’t mean it had to be true.

Though Bryan might be a little too worked up right now for _that_ to be true.

He needed to sort this out. Like, soon. After they won the game. If they won the game. If they won the game and Bryan felt good about his compete level. Then he would talk to Kuhni and make sure he knew that porn on the internet did not correspond to any version of reality. Unless he wanted it to. 

This was a conversation that required post-win adrenalin and good vibes.

*

They did not win, and Bryan’s compete level was not awesome. He was a -2 on the night, and his shoulder ached from a hard check he hadn’t seen coming toward the end of the second period. But after defeat, it was this dissatisfaction that gave him the balls to march up to Kuhni in the showers and get in his face a little. Or try to—Kuhni was really tall.

“What’s going on with you, dude?” he asked, keeping his voice low. No need to cause a scene.

Tom didn’t even look at him, his eyes glued to the bar of soap in his hand.

“Hey man, I’m tal-king to you.” His throat caught, and he forced a deep breath in with his diaphragm. 

“I can hear you just fine,” Kuhni answered, eyes now firmly on the tiled wall. 

“Then why are you being such a dick?” Bryan spat out the words, low and harsh, startling himself.

“You’re the one getting in my face in the shower.”

That felt like a slap. Tom had never snapped at him before. “Because you won’t talk to me. I just wanna know what’s going on with you.”

Tom shook his head. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

The next shower over, Dumo was obviously trying to listen in. Bryan crossed his arms over his chest. “All right, bullshit, but whatever. If you say so. Wanna get some food after this?” He said it like a dare, even though it should not have been. A week ago, it was a standing invitation.

Kuhni’s brow twitched. “I don’t know—”

“It’s just practice tomorrow. I wanna hang out, man.” Bryan pulled out the big guns. “I miss you.”

Finally, _finally_ , Tom looked over at him, a quick glance that stayed firmly above the neck. Before this, Kuhni had never worked so hard not to look at Bryan’s junk in the shower. His mouth twitched something close to a smile—nothing like his giant, whole-face smiles that Bryan would do backflips for, if he could. He hadn’t seen one of those all week.

Tom finally nodded. “All right, fine. I just—I need a little space.”

Confused, Bryan glanced down. “Oh. Yeah.” He took a step back, face getting hot. Stirring up shit on the ice was one thing. He liked antagonizing guys bigger than him. He was pretty sure that had a clinical name. Stirring up shit with his best friend felt entirely different. And when his best friend seemed freaked out just by Bryan’s proximity, _different_ equaled _bad_. The worst.

“Fine,” he forced out and turned sharply away. He still needed to shower, and to try to wash the burning feeling out of his eyes. 

Scrubbing himself down, he kept forgetting about his banged-up shoulder until he lifted his arm, and it pulled. The staff had looked at it and declared him bruised. If it didn’t improve, he’d go for an x-ray. 

The worst part of all this, he thought, washing his face, was that Bryan had heard it before, from people he’d dated. The _I need some space_ line. So he was a close talker. A hugger. A leaner. Occasionally he liked to drape himself. Bones had called him a cuddle floozy last year—accurately. But only with people he liked and who were cool with it! Like, he would not lean on Tanger, for example. Or Murr. Kuhni always seemed cool with it. Kuhni often instigated it. 

But, Bryan’s last girlfriend had told him he should get a dog he could snuggle with because he was just a little too clingy. In retrospect—and Shearsy had been right about this—she hadn’t liked him very much, so her comment may have been a little meaner than it was true. 

Bryan didn’t regret getting Cooper, though. And adopting a dog so he would always have somebody to cuddle with was far from the worst reason to get one. That dog had it made in the shade. Cuddles, expensive food, and lots of playdates around the neighborhood.

But Bryan did not want to end up with only Cooper for a friend, so he had to fix this, pronto, before Kuhni disappeared on him for good.

They grabbed a late supper at the all-night diner they’d been coming to since their first call-up together and sat across from each other, nursing coffees while they waited for their food. Kuhni bounced his knee under the table and wouldn’t really look at him, and it was so wrong, Bryan decided, fuck it. If this was gonna suck either way, he might as well to get it over with rather than suffer through this awkward shit.

“It was just a story, man. Made up.”

Tom nodded sharply. “I know that.” Which confirmed that Bryan had very good instincts, if nothing else.

“I’m not gonna, like, put the moves on you now, just because somebody wrote that we—”

“I _know_ , Rusty.” Tom shot him a frustrated look. 

“Then what’s the big deal? Why’re you acting like you’re al-lergic to me, or whatever?” He cleared his throat and tried not to fidget. 

Tom exhaled and glared down into his coffee. “I’m just trying to… I’m trying not to…” But he couldn’t finish. 

“Are you homophobic?” Bryan asked quietly. Was he that other kind of European? Rusty liked to think he was a better judge of character than that. What with the instincts and all. Somewhere along the line, the whole gay-hating, white supremacy schtick should have emerged, if it was going to.

“No!” Tom looked up at him, eyes wide and horrified. “Jesus. It’s just that…I read the story.” He looked at Bryan with such misery, Bryan almost reached across the table to pat his arm. 

“Come on, buddy, why’d you do it?” he said. “Was it that bad?”

“No.” Tom shook his head. “It wasn’t bad.”

And Bryan was left with that horrible tease of a cliffhanger, because right then their omelets arrived, and they dug in. Eating and talking was pointless, he found. Eating was an all-consuming activity for guys like them, trying to hold onto muscle and bulk through the long season. The calories seemed to work better if he focused more on what he was eating.

But Tom was more relaxed now that he’d admitted it, and as he swiped up the last of his ketchup with a few homefries, Bryan asked, “Was it good?”

Tom made a happy sound. “Mmm, yeah. Awesome.” Then he set his fork on the plate with a clank, wiped his mouth, and rubbed his belly.

Bryan huffed. “I meant the story.”

The easy smile slid off his face, but he shrugged, which was at least an answer. “Good spelling and grammar,” he said grudgingly. “And the way they wrote you. It sounded like you.” He looked up and shrugged again, a little helplessly this time. “It was just so weird.”

Bryan shivered. Was he that easy to pin down that some stranger could perfectly nail his voice from interviews and appearances? He wasn’t a complicated dude, but come on. “Yeah, that’s why I didn’t read it.”

“I tried not to,” Tom said, shoulders slumping in defeat. “But I was too curious. I had to know.”

“Had to know what?” Bryan asked. “Why does it matter?”

Tom’s eyebrows did a complicated thing as he dropped his gaze to the napkin he was twisting into a tight cylinder. He shook his head.

“Was it hot?” Bryan pressed. Why? Why was he pressing? 

Tom’s mouth twisted. He looked up at Bryan through his lashes, which was not a thing Bryan knew he was missing until this moment. “Kind of. Yeah.” He took a breath. “If that’s what you’re into.”

Shit. Shitty, shit, shinski. Now look what he’d gone and done. Given himself an almost-boner in a diner booth. Wearing sweatpants. 

Bryan lost his nerve, then, but he hoped to find it in the parking lot in a few minutes. He dug out his wallet and dropped enough cash for both their omelets on the table. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

~*~

Tom followed Rusty out to the parking lot, his pulse pounding all over his body—in his face and hands, in his ears, in his stomach, and in his dick. Ahead of him, Rusty walked a little funny, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his sweatpants. 

When he got to his car, parked right next to Tom’s, he turned. “Do you wanna come over?” he asked in a rush. 

And Tom had just told him that the story he’d read about them together was hot. This context felt extremely significant. They hadn’t been planning a COD or a Star Wars marathon. They’d been talking, sort of, about sex. They’d been talking about the thing Tom had unsuccessfully tried to scrub from his brain for the better part of a week. That he felt unburdened by his admission did nothing to lessen the number of butterflies in his stomach.

“Yeah,” he answered. “I’ll follow you.”

“Cool.” Then Rusty jumped into his car and shut the door. A second later, it turned over and he was backing out of the lot—all before Tom had even unlocked his own. He spent the short drive to Rusty’s condo trying not to list the different ways this could go. From awesome to devastating with every possibility he’d imagined this week in between.

Though when he pulled into Rusty’s driveway, he determined it could only be one or the other. He wouldn’t walk back out feeling _fine_ or _not too bad_ about whatever might happen.

Before he got out, Tom checked his hair in the visor mirror. He’d rushed styling it after his shower, too twisted up about meeting Rusty for food—knowing what was coming, and hating how powerless he’d be if Rusty looked at him the way he always did and asked for the truth. And here he was. He’d spilled. He’d sung like a fucking canary. 

It was almost like he’d wanted to.

He followed Rusty inside, hoping for the opposite of devastation when he shut the door behind them.

Rusty stood across from him in the kitchen, a hand on one of his breakfast-bar stools. He rubbed his shoulder with the other, and Tom remembered him disappearing with one of the trainers after the game. He didn’t remember a check, but Tom’s focus hadn’t been too good lately.

“Do you need to ice that?” he asked, voice a little rougher than he intended. 

Rusty shook his head, and the kitchen was so quiet, they both jumped when the fridge kicked on. “Kuhni…” Rusty’s fingers squeezed around the barstool back. He licked his lips. “Tommy.”

Tom’s stomach swooped at the sound of his name. “Yeah?” 

“Tell me if I—tell me I didn’t fuck this up.”

Tom frowned. “You didn’t do anything.”

“Not yet.” Rusty let go of the barstool and took a few steps toward him. He stopped much closer than Tom had let him get all week and looked up at him for a long second. This close, it was more than obvious his claim to five feet and eleven inches was a lie. Which was when Tom stopped thinking about stupid things like height. 

“You still haven’t done anything.”

“I’m gonna. But you stopped talking to me and looking at me and touching me,” Rusty answered. “You freaked me the fuck out.” His eyes were very blue and honest in the bright kitchen lights.

“I’m really sorry about that. I was freaking out too.” Tom waited. Rusty had started to fidget, rubbing his palms on his thighs. “Are you going to do something?” Tom asked.

“In a second, yeah.”

Tom shut his eyes for a moment, and that was when Rusty reached for him. He touched Tom’s face, and by reflex Tom wrapped his hands around Rusty’s forearms, the muscle compact and thick in his grip, just like the rest of him. 

“Is this—” But Rusty didn’t finish because when he started to pull away, Tom held on tighter. His skin prickled at Rusty’s fingers moving against the grain of his beard, the soft gust of his breath on his mouth, and the heat of his body—so close it all hung in a perfect moment of before. Of waiting. 

Then Rusty tugged, and the waiting was over. Soft and bristly and wet, Rusty’s mouth on him was as good as he imagined. As he’d dreamed. Certainly better than he’d read. Tom had never kissed a guy with as much facial hair as Bryan. He hadn’t kissed a guy on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, either. Before this, they’d all been summer kisses in Munich with flashy German boys who had no idea who he was or who his dad was. Or, even better, guys traveling from Zurich or Vienna.

“Let’s go upstairs,” Bryan said against his lips. “You can do whatever it was you did to me in that story.”

That brought Tom up short. He opened his eyes to see Rusty looking at him, a nervous smile on his mouth. He let go of Tom’s face and grabbed the front of his shirt instead. “Let’s go. Right?”

“Yeah,” Tom answered, because he definitely wanted to go. With Rusty’s hand still in his shirt, Tom followed closely and tried not to step on his heels. He’d managed not to think about the details of that fucking story since the diner, when Rusty had looked right at him and asked, _Was it hot?_ Because from that moment on, everything was real. It was possible. It wasn’t a fantasy on the internet.

But then Rusty shut them in his bedroom with his unmade bed and the hint of dog-smell in everything. Cooper must have been on a playdate with the neighbor.

Rusty tugged off his shirt and sat on the edge of the bed, like a fantasy right out of that story. “I didn’t really get a good look, but I think—I was on the bed, right? And you were over me.” He pushed back, just casually bare to the waist. Tom stared at the plain of his stomach, his abdominals flexed slightly as he leaned back on his hands. His eyes were fixed on Tom’s crotch. 

Tom approached the bed, face burning. He knelt up over Bryan, one knee pressed between his open thighs. 

“I think you were jerking off on me,” Rusty said. “Do you wanna do that?”

Tom didn’t want to think about that story ever again because he had the real Bryan in front of him. Not imagined smiles or skin or cum. “Is that what you want?” he asked. 

Rusty twitched a shrug, his brows drawing together in a frown. “I just want you to fucking touch me.”

Tom breathed out in relief and dropped down to sit straddling Rusty’s leg. He put his hands on Rusty’s sides. He was so fucking solid and strong. Somehow Tom managed to forget that when Bryan got nervous or unsteady. He knew it now as he pressed him down onto his back, only able to grip his waist because he was holding on so hard. 

Rusty drew an uneven breath. “Okay?” Tom asked.

“Fuck, I missed this,” he said fervently.

“It was only like a week.” Tom settled at Rusty’s side, touching as much of him as he could without laying right on him.

“That’s like an eternity for me, dude. I can’t go that long.” He looked over, humor in his voice, but relief in his eyes. 

“I’ll touch you anytime you want,” Tom said like a vow. “I realized how much I was doing it. That’s why I stopped. I thought—”

“You don’t ever need to stop. Just, like…” Rusty turned toward him and grabbed on, rubbing his face against Tom’s throat. “Tell me if you need space and I’ll borrow Shearsy for a few days or whatever.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Tom decided to just go ahead and lay on him. The noises Rusty made and the way he arched up, Tom thought he liked that.

*

He didn’t know it was possible to touch somebody this much during sex. Which sounded dumb as soon as Tom thought it. But in his experience, the dick was largely the focus of the whole operation. Maybe some kissing and the occasional nipple. Asses if you were really going for it. Basically, though—dicks. 

Dicks were easy. No dick he’d encountered was all that picky. 

Sex with Rusty, though, Tom had to remind himself to touch Rusty’s dick. Because as much as Rusty wanted to be touched, he seemed to _love_ touching Tom. His fingers dug into Tom’s hair and pressed behind his ears, along his collarbones and shoulder blades. He dug his thumbs into Tom’s armpits, and it was probably an accident, but the way he grinned when Tom yelped gave him his doubts. Rusty kissed his cheeks and his nose and his chin and his eyelids. He nipped at his throat and jaw and, weirdly, his eyebrows.

He was a very busy guy. 

Until Tom rolled them onto their sides facing each other and slotted his leg between Rusty’s, anchored his top hand behind Rusty’s knee and stroked his dick with the other. It was a little awkward jerking him off with his arm trapped between them, but Rusty curled his hips into it, and with both his hands free, rubbed all up and down Tom’s sides and back. He touched Tom’s skin the way Tom needed water after sweating through a long night.

He didn’t go still until a very specific moment, his grip loosening on Tom’s arm and his mouth open against Tom’s throat.

“Almost there?” Tom asked quietly. He looked down between their bodies and felt Rusty nod against his cheek.

“Yeah.”

Tom bumped his grip on the head of Rusty’s cock in a quick, twisting rhythm, and Rusty jerked hard, exhaling a sharp sound in Tom’s ear. Tom’s heart beat like crazy watching it happen, and his dick twitched, looking for that release, too, as Rusty shivered and shook in his arms.

When he’d gone quiet and Tom had a mess on his hands, Rusty wriggled downward out of his grip. 

“Where are you going?” 

“Guess.” Rusty looked up at him as he scooted down the bed and grinned.

Huffing a laugh, Tom grabbed a bunch of tissues to clean off his hand and took a few swipes at what had landed on the bedspread. 

He should have known Rusty would find a way to touch him everywhere and go down on him at the same time, too. Still on his side, Rusty slid down between Tom’s legs and kind of curled around him so his knees pressed into Tom’s lower back and Tom’s top leg was hooked over Rusty’s arm. He snuggled close, ducked his head, and sucked him down. 

Tom reached for Rusty’s shoulder by reflex, and Rusty made a sound of discomfort. “Shit, sorry.” Tom could see the bruise coming on and got his hand in Rusty’s hair instead. He bent as close as he could so they almost made a circle. He imagined, looking down on them, they were yin and yang, though he wasn’t sure who was which or what significance the distinction had. He only knew the most important thing was touching.

*

After, they lay together in Rusty’s bed, Rusty beside him with his forehead pressed to the side of Tom’s shoulder and his arm across Tom’s chest. He pressed a soft kiss to Tom’s biceps and said, “Man, I’m glad you read that story. Like, talk about a weird situation turning into a good situation. Damn.”

“Ugh, can we never talk about that, please?” Tom said, but he softened his words with a touch to the back of Rusty’s arm.

“Only if you tell me what you thought you were gonna get out of it. Then I swear I’ll never bring it up ever again. Why would you want to know what some stranger thinks your sex life is like?”

Tom groaned again and rubbed his face. “I guess…I want to know why you wouldn’t? How could you not read it if you know it’s out there?”

Rusty shrugged. “It wasn’t that hard, man.”

“Well I—” What did he have to lose now? He traced a path around the edge of Rusty’s bruise and down along his ribs until he twitched a shiver. “I’ve liked you for a while. A long time. I was never gonna say anything, or hit on you or whatever, but reading that story…I started to think what it would be like. How things would be different if any of us could just. Be that way together.”

Because of course, he hadn’t been able to stop at just his and Rusty’s stories. Not once he’d started. Almost every guy in the room had entire imagined lives written and posted about them online. Hundreds of thousands of words. Sex and romance and kink and unexplained pregnancies and animal transformations. The weirdest shit Tom had ever seen, and it was all about love and acceptance and team. 

In the locker room that week, everywhere he looked, he saw evidence that hadn’t been there the day before. 

Horny and Hags laughed and touched and were just…naked a lot, so, yeah. They were best friends, but they could also be fucking. The way Geno poked and teased Phil, Tom didn’t have to stretch far to see the size of his crush. Sid might be harboring half a lifetime of jealousy over Geno, or he could still be mourning Flower’s trade and losing the love of his life.

Worst of all, the fact of Rusty, undressed and unashamed, felt more dangerous than Tom had ever let it be. It felt like Rusty was for Tom, which he was _not_. Those stories were all fun and games, but this was his life, and these were his coworkers. The cocky Landshut Cannibal he’d been in Germany was nobody here. Tom had remade himself in the Penguins organization, and he wasn’t about to lose everything over a crush.

“I couldn’t afford to think that way. So I shut off,” he finished. He didn’t dare look over at Bryan. And for many long moments, he only felt the gentle pressure of his breathing along his side.

“Shit, Tommy,” he finally murmured. “I can, uh. I can see how that could fuck with you.”

Tom shot him a glance. “And it didn’t with you? At all?”

Rusty shrugged. “Not technically…as such? I was more worried that you were freaked about it, and you thought I was gonna, like, put the moves on you.”

“You thought I was a homophobe.”

“Only for a second,” he said defensively. “I know you better than that.”

“Yeah.” Rusty knew him better than anybody on the team. Even Sid, who just somehow understood everybody at their basic level and could explain it entirely in hockey comparisons. But Sid was probably a little bit magic. Rusty was…Rusty was just really good for Tom.

“So basically, reading that story broke open the floodgates of your feelings for me and made you see gay everywhere,” Rusty said, a smile back in his voice.

“Sort of,” Tom allowed. “But not reading it made you just as paranoid that I knew how you felt.”

Rusty squeezed his arm tighter across Tom’s front. “I didn’t really know what I felt until you stopped touching me.”

They were quiet for a few moments until Rusty’s breathing began to slow. Then Tom said softly, “I dreamed about you. After I read it.”

“Hmm?” Rusty said, half asleep. 

“It felt so real. We talked some, and you touched me just like this.” He moved Bryan’s hand to the middle of his belly.

“Mmm.” Rusty scratched his fingers through the line of hair on Tom’s stomach. 

“It was the worst feeling ever waking up and you weren’t there.”

“Mmm,” he said again. “I bet.”

Tom huffed a laugh. Unlike him, Bryan had succeeded here by being exactly himself. More himself. Speed and stubbornness and chemistry with everybody. What had Bones called him? “Cuddle floozy.”

Bryan’s snort of laughter startled him, and Tom grinned wider, hugging him tight when he tried to pull away. He ended up with Bryan on top of him, heavy and a little sticky and more than a little inclined to use teeth. 

“I don’t even know what that means, actually,” Tom said in self-defense, squirming away from Rusty’s biting kisses to his neck.

“It means I’m better than anyone at cuddling,” Rusty answered.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll take your word for it, I guess.” He couldn’t seem to stop grinning.

“Go to sleep,” Rusty grumbled. “I promise I’ll be here when you wake up this time.”

With Rusty’s face still tucked against his throat, Tom didn’t have to worry about anybody seeing the face he made at that reassurance.

 

End.

**Author's Note:**

> No specific fandom references were made in this fic, and the identity of authors and fandom spaces was protected. (lol, is this what irony is in rpf fandom?)
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr!](http://itstartledme.tumblr.com/)


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